Looks like your motor is in really good shape.

Just a little update on things. While the end result I want is still the same, the path I am taking is a little different. I was planning on getting the car repaired while I built the engine, get the car back, drop everything in, and away I go. The guy who is going to fix the rust is recovering from a gun shot wound...so I am going to build the engine, get it in the car, and than get the rust fixed, get a fresh coat of paint on it, and pass inspection. So I will be able to get it together and at least start it up before spring.

Just a quick question. How hard is it to replace cam bearings? I can borrow a puller/installer, but Ive heard both sides...its not that hard or that I should have a shop put them in. Thought Id ask what your takes were...

It's not that bad if you have the tool. I don't have a bearing puller, so I pressed the bearings into the block and pulled them out sideways (the center ones are kind of hard to reach). Just be careful not to damage the bearing races, or the bearings won't seat right, and make sure you install them with the oil passages in the correct position. From the front of the block, the oil holes need to between 4 and 5 o'clock on the three rear bearings. The front bearing has two holes and needs to straddle the other (essentially at 3 and 5 o'clock) and have the notch facine the front of the block to oil the timing set.

I found out after I had two installed that the SBC bearings work good in the 660 blocks and are wider - they take up the whole race, whereas the 660 bearings are centered in the race.

I finally got some time to putz on the engine a little. All I did today is I gave the block a little bath and took off the rear cam seal. The block looks pretty good..............where there is still paint.....



I also got a look at the rear cam bearing....

Looks like its in pretty bad shape, just like all the others.



^^Also my bearings are different. Looking from the front, the front has 2 holes, one at about 3:30 and the other at about 5:30 (I like being exact). The other 3 had one hole at about 4.
Also havent done much work lately.....Im still waiting for Santa to bring the gifts I bought for my car.

How are they different? That's how I described them (unless the front bearing doesn't have the notch).

can you tell me what you took off the front driver side of the block. Im not sure what goes there. I didnt take the motor our or take the motor apart that is in the car. Just not sure what goes there. Right infront of the motor mount.

Sorry, I misread that. Dont know about the notch. Ill double check that, but youre probubly right.

I looked through the pics I have and there is a little bracket on the back of the PS pump that gets bolted there.

Ok thanks I was not too sure what went there Thanks for the info

hell i pulled the oil plug out of mine last night and it came out green.. engine had a blown head gasket/cracked head not sure yet have not torn down the top end.. im just swapping i will tear down later

LIM gasket is a possability.

219k miles on the car time to retire it any ways was running like crap before it blew also it had a spark plug with the electrode burnt off on the nr 5 cylender

You throwin in the towl? Id fix the coolent problem and that give it a really good tune up. Might fix some of your problems.

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While I wait for the "christmas presents" I bought for my car to get shipped to me, most were backordered, I decided to use the hinge repair kit I bought and put my door back on......

Sagging door problem is gone and it closes like a dream now. Still have to put the spring back in and pound the lower pin down.
I also put the back bumper and lights back on...busy work getting the car ready for the trip to get repaired.

actualy i put on new wires/plugs dizzy cap and air filter just before it blew up.. new coil going on w/swap

How's it feel, Chris? Those little things that bother you are the cat's meow when they finally go away, lol.

It took me just over a year to use that repair kit...And yea it does feel good to get some of the "little" stuff that annoyed me fixed.
On a side note...Im having little to no luck with figuring out how I would tune my computer with the turbo 3.1 code, so I was thinking about just using a FMU for the time being and later on down the road Ill get a chip burnt that can read boost.

I have an 8:1 made by Paxton sitting in my garage, all pretty annodized blue -- and it's never been used

I'll sell it for the same price as the knock-off ebay ones go for. $89 and I'll trow it in your next delivery.

Sure, Ill take it. Give me about a week and Ill send the money.
Got anything else I need laying around.........mabye a alternator bracket to work with 3100 heads?

I finally got all the stuff I ordered for my car. Still need some little odds and ends, but I got a lot of the big stuff... a pile of gaskets, bearings, piston rings, cam, lifters, and timing chain set...

I still need to hone the cylinders, and than I can start putting this puzzle back together. After that comes the tranny and posi....Than the real fun begins

Good to see that it is all comming together. Just to ask, how much did all of the gaskets, bearings and such cost you for the rebuild?

Here is a list of gaskets and bearing I got...
MAIN BEARING SET
CONNECTING ROD BEARINGS
CAMSHAFT BEARING SET
VALVE COVER GASKET (3100)
TIMING COVER SET
OIL PAN SET
INTAKE MANIFOLD GASKET SET (3100)
REAR MAIN SEAL
HEAD GASKET
PISTON RINGS SETS (GM)
...All these cost about $274(gaskets/bearing)+$210(piston rings)= $484 and some odd change. All were bought from Summit except for the piston rings. I realized that I didnt buy the metal intake gaskets when I got them...but oh well

$210 for just piston rings? Yikes!

Yeah...They were about $35 a set. Although I had some help with the funding of these. The prices I found ranged from $35 to $95 a set. I probubly didnt get the "best deal" on these, but just like with the intake gaskets...Oh well.

Return the intake gaskets if you can, but the metal ones are more than double the cost. IIRC I paid $79 or $89 for the gen3 3400 gaskets to have some to port to.

Yes rings are expensive. Even the stock replacement from sealed power for the 3.4 are $20/set - or $120 for an engine! Also GM dealers don't stock them, and GM parts direct wants about $30/set (again one piston).

I was thinking about it. Is the metal part just the UIM to LIM gasket?

No, you only get the metal UIM to LIM gasket when you get the 3500 top end kit from GM.

The improtant gasket is the LIM to heads. It is metal with rubber inserts, and are much larger than the stock gaskets.

Here's a LIM I am porting to the metal gaskets (to show you what they look like)...

Oh I thought that it was just the top gaskets. Ill deffinatly try to exchange them.

A little update: After waiting, almost a month, to borrow a few items from friends I decided to buy them. Got my cylinder hone in about a week ago. My classes were canceled today, because of the huge freaking blizzard, so I did a little honing...



Hows it look for my first time?
Still have a lot of cleaning to do on the block, but I have most of the stuff I need to get the engine put back together. Still need to find a place to rebuild my tranny.

damn not a half bad hone job

Where in Western PA you located bud? Looking good.

Good job!

Everything looks so good in your engine.

Note the timing chain dampener, every 60* I have pulled apart has the same broken spot - (driver's side top).

I'm wondering how useful a real spring loaded timing chain tensioner would be to us 60*s?
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EDIT:

FANTASTIC job on the honing!!!

Looks almost as good as mine, lmao

Im about 45 min north of Pittsburgh.

Ive never seen one of those. Ill have to look it up.


Thanks. And dont worry about the typo...I fixed that for you.

We'll have to meet up sometime when the cars can come out and play. Maybe at the Starlight cruise in Wexford or something.

Because they don't exist AFAIK


HMMM....










Really, you did a good job though

Got your headers in the back seat of my truck, just need a minute to slot them and get them with the FMU out in the mail. Hours have been crazy lately between the two jobs.


Are you going to port the top end?

Ive actually gone to that show a couple times. There are a lot of cool cars around here.

Uh...there is a smudge in the #1 cylinder in the second pic

Thanks. Yours look really good to. Mine isnt perfect yet. Im thinking about one more pass at it. Thats cool about the headers...Im not quite ready for them yet. And about the intake...I might gasket match them, but nothing to crazy at this point. I just want to get my car back on the road

Are you getting forward facing headers or just under the k member? The engine is really starting to look nice. Do you have the heads yet or not?

I wouldn't. You want to hone as little as possible, just to get scratches on the surface. Take as little material off as you can to get the right texture.

Sure they do, it may effect cam timing though, possibly retard a degree or so. I'll be checking this on my 3500.

Here is my stainless steel headers modified, by FirstFirebird, to work with his old turbo setup. And yes I have the heads...I have most of the stuff I need(heads/UIM/LIM/pistons/etc.) Just need to get a few odds and ends.


Seeing how this is my first time, I will take your advise. Id hate to mess things up.

Oh I just remembered...What would be a good way to support the turbo? Should I get a bracket made? Should it stay where it is with SS pipes in the mix?

Spring loaded chain dampeners?

How much and where? I wonder if it's a good market to make a few.

Yeah, remember your comment in the "stroking a 60*" thread where you mentioned small numbers. .010" overbore is not a lot of material - especially when a bore tolerance is +/-.002" -or- almost 1/4 of the distance of a .010" overbore. The hone is used to perfect the bore (to tighter than .002") when on a machine and create the cross hatches to seat the rings properly during break-in.


I was going to make an "L" type bracket that bolted to the timing cover and to the turbo. It's just that there is a long stretch from the y pipe to the turbo inlet and the tubing is 14ga. With support it will last for a good while, but my car isn't a DD and only does a few hundred miles a year so it wasn't a big concern for me.

Readily available from a GM dealer or parts store.

I don't want to just come out and say that this will work, without knowing what effects on cam timing it will have. I'd hate to have someone say "But I read that Six_Shooter said it would work", when I haven't....yet.

Part number? I need a new dampener for the 3.4 and am willing to test it on the 3.4/3500 monster

If there are any design flaws, maybe we can correct it :P

Got sent home early from work today("Oh no, hes near overtime!!!! Send him home!!!) so I figured I would clean the mess, under the cylinders, that I made while honing. The mess first smeared and all the shavings found their way into the texture on the underside of the engine. After about 2 hours of cleaning I cant tell if the shavings are still there or if I just cleaned it that well.

I dont really want to take the chance of the shavings still being there, and slowly ruining my engine, so I now have to find a place around me that will hot tank my block...Which sucks because I wanted to have the engine mostly put together by Monday Not anywhere ready to put it back in...Just want to get some stuff put on/in the engine.
And me putting in my posi by the time Im done isnt looking good anymore. These things are adding up and the posi might have to wait

I didnt want to hijack someone elses thread, so I moved this to mine...It sounds like 2.8RS isnt interested in the 3x00 swap.
So what youre saying is that I could get a memcal out of a FWD ecm and put it in my ecm? What would this do? Help with the spark tables?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you basically have a 3100 in your car when finished, correct?

Check out the latest posts by Fast355...

http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/df...ist-motor.html (92 v6 dist. motor to coil packs)

Yeah its pretty much a 3100 engine (3100 pistons/heads/intake). I actually just saw that post...and it had the wiring diagrams I had just started looking for Also my timing wheel setup is adjustable. It allows for adjusting the ignition timing +10 to -5 degrees from stock. Im assuming that this will help me out.

By swapping to a DIS setup you don't need to cut up the 3x00 intake to fit a distributor. It's also more accurate, you never have to set base timing again and there's less junk to spend money on (no more cap, rotor, ect.)

I finally got my TB situation sorted out. All I need to do is get 1 thing spot welded and my TB is all ready to go...oh and my stock cables should work


Ill get some pics up as soon as I get the TB 100% done.......

You guys think that this will work.....



There is still some work to be done. Im going to clean it up a bit, match the TB opening to match the TB, and grind off the EGR port. But I wanted to throw it together to see it.
To answer a few questions before you ask them...
Yes, the TB dosent cover that opening at the top of the neck of the UIM. I have a plate that seals that opening, but the bolts I have are not long enough to hold the TB and plate to the UIM. So there is no problem there.
Yes, that is the stock TB linkage adapted to a later year shaft. A buddy of mine "mushroomed" the rod where it stuck threw the linkage. There was a tiny bit of side-to-side play, so he covered the end in JB Weld. It wouldnt have gone anywhere anyways...he just wanted to use some JB Weld.